Swordless Ninja

Mabushi is a ninja who looks like a bean, but he doesn't let that get him down. Not when he has the prettiest girl in the village for a girlfriend! Yes, life is a pretty sweet fruit if you're Mabushi... at least until a jealous demon lord absconds with both his girlfriend and his sword! Set out across the land to help him rescue his true love as you hop, shuriken, dart, and generally ninja your way through this gorgeous, retro-style platformer!

elemeno: I disagree that we "always link to a host site that is not the one that gives extra content." Once or twice, yes, but in those cases once we learned of the limitations imposed, we changed the links to point to where all the content exists. In the case of Casual Space, the developer asked us to link to his version since he gets points when people go to Kongregate from his link. We chose to honor the developer's request (we usually do).

As for this game, I believe you may have misunderstood the concept of Gamer Safe.

All the content for Swordless Ninja, as far as I can tell, is available in the version we have linked to here. Sure, you will need a Gamer Safe account to access some of the content, but you can log into your Gamer Safe account within any hosted version of Swordless Ninja.

That's the point of Gamer Safe, and I believe (and I hope) that it will help end the days where you have to play a game at a certain site to access all the content.

Update: I was just made aware that there is some bonus content available only at YoArcade, so I've changed the links (back again) to point there instead.

Good catch there. Originally the link WAS to yoarcade but must have changed. The reason for bonus content on a specific site is because sites pay developers money to have their advertising in the games and sometimes want bonus content only on their site. This is a good reason for GamerSafe as you can play the game on any site, save your progress, then go to another site and resume from the same point.

Just to clarify, any snarkiness in my original post was wholly unintended, said post intending to convey a genuine interest in this particular mechanic of online casual gaming and its reasons for existing.

As I now realize, when JIG does link to the site that doesn't block "extra" content, we wouldn't notice... it only sticks out when linking to the site that tells you you're in the wrong place and you have to start over again to access the full game. So of course I would think JIG "always" links elsewhere... *facepalm* Again, not meant to insult or disrespect.

I think that the means of funding and distribution of online casual games are an important aspect that should be considered in discussions of those games. As such, decisions made by review sites like JIG are of interest to users like myself. I think my question was fair, and I must reiterate that it was meant with good intentions and genuine interest, and not a shred of trolliness.

For the record, I think helping out the developer is a good reason to link to his site instead of the "extra" content site, and is exactly the type of answer I was looking for on that point.

Nobody has really quite addressed how giving incentives to play a game on a specific site really helps them out though, and I don't quite get that yet. Is it that the more traffic they get, the more their ad space is worth?

If so I think that securing exclusive content rights is sort of a cheap way to make their site better than alternatives hosting the same game, even if it works. It seems like if you want more traffic you should come up with new features that make your site interesting, not just resort to crippling the same content on other sites.

But I do understand that free content is really nice, and I sort of have to take whatever people come up with if I want to continue to enjoy it.

I know I didn't take your post to be disrespectful at all, but inquisitive. I could go on forever about game monetization, but I don't think this is the right place for that. I will say that currently the entire Free-to-play space is almost wholly supported by advertising. And advertising pays in a few ways: number of "views" on an ad, number of "clicks" on an ad, and number of "actions" taken after clicking an ad. So, sites are paid by advertisers for ads on their site, around the games, and that's how they make all of their revenue (I'm being very general here, so I apologize if you know this already and this sounds too simple). So, basically, any traffic they can bring to their site = $$. So if they can have a hook in a game to bring you to their site.. even if you leave after playing the game... is money in the bank to them. This is how everything can be "free" for players.

I should note that most sites and developers work really hard to only have "bonus content" that isn't necessary for the enjoyment of the game, but that is extra and will draw players that truly enjoy the game enough to check out the bonus content. This is also how other sites accept the game even though they don't get that bonus content.

This is where GamerSafe comes in. As you probably noticed you can actually spend real money to buy an item in Swordless Ninja (it ends up being $1.25 or less depending how much GamerGold you buy). We hope that players who truly enjoy the game (and any game in the GamerSafe network) will be willing to pay for that content, and that way some of these tactics will fade away as the industry will have another form of revenue other than advertising. Also, with GamerSafe in particular, we also hope to bring a lot of value to games that are free, like saving of achievements and game saves, etc across computers and sites. If you have a GamerSafe account try playing Swordless Ninja on any site.. you'll see all your stuff comes with you! Also, you can log into your account at GamerSafe.com to see all the achivements you have or have yet to earn.

Sorry, that got a bit "marketing" in the end. I'd love to hear what you, and all gamers, think about this and what YOU would like to see. All of this, ultimately, is for your enjoyment.

It's a blatant Mario clone but with much less responsive controls and pretty bad level design. The action is zoomed in too much (perhaps to admire the cute graphics), platforming is dull and fighting (at least in first few levels) is more of an annoyance then an amusing feature.

Production values are high, characters are cute, atmosphere is nice, but still I'd rather be playing Super Mario then a much less entertaining clone.

This has got to be one of the best platformers I've played online in a long time. The gameplay was smooth, the controls were simple and easy to get used to, and the little story to go along with it was greatly entertaining.

While playing Swordless Ninja, I've had great fun skipping between game portals with my GamerSafe account, picking up the game where I left off on other portals. The game itself is extremely entertaining and brings back memories of simpler time and place. GamerSafe makes it terrific! Hopefully all future flash games incorporate it into their games. Definitely 5/5!

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